N.J. couple in Bahamas crash finally get medical flight home

For six days, Diandra Barreto and boyfriend Michael Gallinella were stuck in a Bahamas hospital: she with a dislocated leg, spine fractures and a lacerated liver, he with broken ribs, a punctured lung and a possible neck injury.

Two hospitals, one in the Bahamas and the other in Miami, refused to mend the uninsured couple, relatives and officials said, unless they paid thousands of dollars upfront.

So for nearly a week, they waited.

On Friday night, with the help of a little diplomacy and a lot of North Jersey fund raising, they finally found their passage home in a $22,000 flight to Hackensack University Medical Center — paid for from the pockets of local businesses, friends, family and legislators — and a sizeable federal emergency loan.

“I just can’t wait; I’m a nervous wreck,” Gallinella’s mother, Pat, said from her Rahway home hours before the arrival of her son and his Hasbrouck Heights girlfriend at Teterboro Airport.

There was uncertainty for much of Friday on whether the flight would even happen.

“She’s been losing some blood,” said Thania Melo, a close friend of Barreto’s who visited her in the Bahamas earlier this week. “They have to make sure she’s safe to fly out today.”

The ordeal began at the end of a weeklong vacation to the Bahamas for the couple, who met while working for a restaurant chain and began dating a few months ago. They were headed back from the beach to their hotel on Sunday — their last day — on a rented scooter when Gallinella either hit or tried to avoid a pothole and crashed into a van, relatives said. Gallinella, 36, of Woodbridge, suffered extensive injuries, including several broken ribs, a punctured lung and numbness in his arm from a suspected neck injury, according to Lisa Skroder, co-owner of Trinity Air Ambulance, which flew the couple to Teteboro Friday evening.

Both patients had chest tubes, requiring them to be transported on stretchers, Skroder said.

But it was Barreto, 24, who was hurting most: a dislocated leg, several spine fractures and a lacerated liver, which may have been bleeding internally during the past week, according to Skroder.

By the time Melo had arrived at the Nassau, Bahamas hospital Monday afternoon, Barreto’s condition had gone from critical to stable. Yet the possibility of internal bleeding was still real, and she needed surgery on her hip, Melo said — an operation not scheduled until next Wednesday.

A U.S. Embassy official at the hospital advised that because of the bruised organs and Gallinella’s need for an MRI — for which Melo said the hospital was asking $2,000 — transport to the United States was crucial.

Calls by family members were made to Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital — and were rebuffed. The hospital, according to the victims’ relatives and New Jersey officials, refused to take the couple because they had no insurance — unless they paid about half of the $250,000 estimated cost of the treatment.

“He needed an MRI and the hospital in the Bahamas wouldn’t give it to him unless he paid first,” Skroder said. “And none of the Florida hospitals would take them. They told us to bring them to New Jersey since they’re residents there and can get Medicare.”

Jackson Memorial did not make anyone available for comment Friday.

According to legal experts, the Miami hospital did not violate the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act, which mandates that hospitals provide care to patients who show up at their emergency departments for treatment.

“Under [the law], hospitals must evaluate and stabilize a patient,” said John Jacobi, faculty director at Seton Hall University School of Law. “But the law does not require that one hospital accept a transfer from another hospital. This highlights how precarious the situation is under [the law]. A hospital doesn’t have to provide complete medical care, just get the patient stabilized.”

Still, the couple was left without a hospital, leading the embassy official to tell Melo: “We need some advocacy.”

Pascrell aides made calls to various local hospitals as well the U.S. State Department, which gave the couple a $9,100 federal emergency loan to help pay for the medical evacuation transport, said Pascrell, who is running for reelection in the 9th District.

Hackensack was the first hospital to respond, accepting the couple without money upfront, relatives said. The hospital declined to comment.

“The first thing that’s got to get done is get them in a good hospital and treatment that we’ve already wasted two days on,” Pascrell said in a phone interview. He referred to the couple’s situation as an example of the “plight of health care” in the country.

Yet $12,000 remained to be raised to pay for the flight home. Melo recruited donations from small-business owners, friends and her mother’s co-workers around Passaic while the city’s mayor, Alex Blanco, solicited state Assembly members and county freeholders. Within three days they had the money.

By 6:15 p.m. the plane from the Bahamas International Airport was in the air — delayed until then while Barreto’s condition stabilized, according to Trinity Air. At 9:07 p.m., the Lear Jet touched down at Teterboro Airport, where Pascrell and three friends of Baretto waited, her godmother wringing her hands. Before two ambulances rushed the wounded couple to Hackensack Medical Center, Melo spoke about the financial and physical recovery that lies ahead.